


Long Last Looks

by Indybaggins



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: Could Be Canon, Friendship/Love, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-13
Updated: 2006-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indybaggins/pseuds/Indybaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wondered about the years, no, the <i>life</i> they missed out on…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Last Looks

 

 

Ryan had always wondered about Colin. From the very beginning of their days together, now wrapped in the vague mist of memories, he had wondered about that what was so beautifully, so hesitantly there in the deep rumbling belly laughs and cracking up in the middle of small stages. 

It had been there right through the years of their shared success: glances now, but interpreted by the world to see, moves, but just played, something of the actual intimacy of it lost, until it all became a duty, a raw open wound, pain multiplied by the same old routine that wasn’t improv anymore, not really. 

All through the years after he had quit, after he had said farewell to the lights that did nothing but highlight the lines in his face that pain and years had put there. After he had said goodbye to Colin, to all which was once their shared passion and he still seemed to adore so openly. After he had decided that it was over for him now, and the days seemed so much paler and quieter and had lost so _much_. 

He continued to wonder. 

Wondered if Colin cried at night, sometimes. Wondered if he was actually happy with the life he led. Wondered if the shyness was a farce really, and if there was a certain confidence behind it all. 

Wondered why he had never asked, and if he just should have known, somehow. 

When people thought they still were close they were wrong, to some extent. 

On stage they had been close, twenty long stretched years of an almost telepathic connection sometimes, almost genuine friends, almost wicked, almost love. 

And off stage they were very little. They knew that now. They both had had someone to officially love and hold at night all along, only in the reality of living a country apart it actually mattered now. And time passed, phone calls not portraying anything but a vague reminder of what there once was hidden under words that meant so little, pain buried in pauses in the conversation, tears in the click when the phone line died. 

Eventually, they stopped calling. 

And when Ryan looked at Colin with his wife at a senseless party, burying their eyes in the masses so they wouldn’t meet, not really, he was struck by the idea that Colin could have been so much more. All he saw was a man with tired eyes and a Batman watch he was decades too old for, holding a vibrant and lively body in his arms without ever acknowledging it, eyes drifting to the floor. 

The only time he had ever seen Colin _alive_ was on stage, cooking up plans, imagining the world to be all his. Back then he had thought he was the same, that they would be together forever, eternal partners in crime, always just the two of them in a way, throughout it all. But yet they ended up so far apart. 

 

Time had passed in vague fleeting minutes and his children grew up too fast, and it had been years ago he’d been with Colin on a stage when he saw him again, every time they had met surrounded by parties and executives nothing but shadows; it was on the stage they were alive, finally together, and the anticipation already formed a tight knot in his chest. 

Colin had looked even more tired this time, talked to everyone about touring with Brad without laughter in his eyes and sipped from a steaming cup of coffee backstage. For the first time he’d realised he was getting old; they both were. 

There were only a couple minutes left before they had to go on, both already nervously fiddling with his microphone, both in different, flashier clothes now; when he had finally really looked over at Colin. He looked like a painting in primal colors, all the hurt hidden away behind one grotesque cover of stage make-up and a smile that was just too bright. Colin’s eyes were the only calm and familiar part of him, the only thing that didn’t scream out “lie” to Ryan, and he focused on them when he’d asked him how he was. 

He’d replied “You know…” before looking at the ground again, and he did know; he knew about endless nights with a question on his mind, and he knew about the terror of memories, what they could do. 

He knew it when he wrapped his arms around Colin, too tight, and kissed his brow, one last time in a pale dedication to the past on their way to the stage. 

And he knew it when Colin looked back at him, one last time, his eyes asking with a strangled look about the years, no, the _life_ , they missed out on. 

He’d shrugged and had tried to mould his face into something that wasn’t there, and Colin had looked away before stepping on the stage, fake smile already in place. 

They’d always known really.

 

 

 

 


End file.
